Video Driving Facebook? We’re A Fan of That

Why bother with emails when you can leave a video on your friend’s wall in the same amount of time?

Ok, so that’s not exactly the normal Facebook etiquette, but it could soon be due to the staggering amount of video being uploaded to the social networking site.

Business Insider‘s Chart of the Day found video views from Facebook are leveling out around 250 million views per month, after spiking and falling from that same point last November. Though BI sees this as a potential replacement to photo sharing that Facebook provided hours of mindless fun for friends, colleagues and the odd Human Resources department to sift through. Now it’s just as easy to shoot a video and upload on the go.

Gizmodo hammered this point home in their review of the iPhone 4’s new camera:

720p video is good enough. It’s HD. The iPhone 4’s 30fps framerate is smoother and more consistent than the Droid X; the colors more vibrant than it or the Flip. At night, the iPhone 4’s video looks more natural, and less washed out. It has the same problems as other cheap camcorders, of course, like the jelly effect, and nonexistent stabilization. On the other hand, there’s no reason to carry a separate cheap camcorder ever again.

Combine this with the ideas of a crowdsourced video movement, like Jeff Deutchman’s 11-04-08, a “participatory documentary” which takes a global look at the day Barack Obama was voted into office through multiple sources and still seeks more footage. As more cameras and smartphones developed their photo sharing services, so did sites like Flickr and even portable Photoshop crop up to give people a choice.

But for now, we’ll stick with being fans of the concept and liking it. Our response video will come later.